A Wider Net

Considering that Apple isn’t exhibiting at CES, they seem to own this show. There is hardly a booth in the show that doesn’t have an i-something. There are more devices here to stick your ipod into, or stick on your ipod, than previously imaginable. Once Apple revealed their iPhone, you could hear the show buzzing with talk of “did you see the iPhone?” and “did you hear…?” and “wow, that’s going to be a fingerprint nightmare”.

Even their competitors have a “we may beat ‘em someday, but for now we’ll join ‘em” attitude. I heard one of Apple’s chief rivals, Creative Sound Labs, shout in their booth presentations “Yes, we do TOO make accessories for iPod!” Microsoft had lots of iPod-friendly solutions, too, despite their Zune presence.

While you may not be an iPod fan (and technically, I’m not either - there are lots of better devices from iRiver, Archos, Creative, and others), but you should know that the universe of iPod accessories that would make decent premiums and SWAG has expanded considerable.

Some of my favorite iPod things (not all of these are suitable for premiums):

Motorola showed a Bluetooth accessory for iPod that allowed you to play your iPod through their neat bluetooth wireless headphones (when they’re not being used as headphones for your phone).

Sharp had a high end iPod dock/boom box/clock radio that sounded amazing, but would require a hefty nightstand.

Visteon, a manufacturer of Car electronics and embedded systems, showed ipod docking stations, ways to control your ipod from the steering wheel, navigation screens that double as ipod browsers, and perhaps the coolest thing ever - wireless device charging for phones, PDA’s, and iPods. Some devices, including iPods needed special wireless charging adapters, but other new devices had the needed induction coils built in to receive the charge. They also claim, fortunately, that the blast of energy won’t harm the battery or hard drive in the devices.

And for the low-to-middle-end premiums, there were endless iPod cases, skins, stick-on protector sheets, fuzzy things, shiny things, and odd accessories like the speaker-and-light-bulb-combo iLamp.

My hats off to apple - they’re not here, but it’s feeling a bit like iCES.